From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pacific Electric Railway (AAR reporting marks PE), also known as
the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern
California using streetcars, light rail, and buses. At its greatest extent, around 1925, the system
interconnected cities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and also connected
to Riverside County and San Bernardino County in
the Inland Empire.
Only a few years after the company's formation, most of Pacific Electric's stock
was purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which Henry Huntington had
tried and failed to gain control of a decade earlier. In 1911, Southern Pacific bought out Huntington except for
the LARy and also purchased several other passenger railways Huntington owned in
the Los Angeles area including Pasadena and Pacific, resulting in the "Great
Merger" of 1911. At this point the Pacific Electric became the largest operator
of interurban electric railway
passenger service in the world, with over 1,000 miles of track. The Pacific
Electric also ran frequent freight trains under electric power throughout its
service area, including one of the few electrically-powered Railway Post Office
routes in the country. The PE was also responsible for an innovation in grade
crossing safety that was quickly adopted by other railroads, a fully automatic
electromechanical grade crossing signal nicknamed the "wigwag."
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